The Fort Myers Cyclery sign remains outside the longtime bike shop at Cleveland and Hill avenues. The property’s new owner, Dan O’Berski, plans to redevelop the site as Motley Market.
David Dorsey
Dan O’Berski kept driving past the northwest corner of Cleveland and Hill avenues in Fort Myers, wondering who would purchase the bike shop across the street from a strip club and hoping it would be something more family-oriented.
The more O’Berski drove by it, the more he began thinking about buying it himself. He described it as an internal debate, a “conversation with God,” about wanting to buy the building but not knowing if he had the financials to do it.
On Aug. 31, O’Berski paid $1 million for the 4,200-square-foot building under his new corporate entity, Cleveland Hill LLC. He said the money came from his piece of another real estate deal. As managing partner and broker with Trinity Commercial Group, O’Berski had a small ownership stake in the $65 million June sale of The Pointe at Founder’s Square in North Naples, a shopping center TCG helped fill with tenants.
Unable to find a 1031 exchange — an investment in another commercial property that would defer paying federal income taxes on the Founder’s Square profits — O’Berski realized he already had funds in hand to purchase the legacy bike shop building.
Motley Market is the tentative new name that will adorn the Fort Myers building, O’Berski said.
Dan O’Berski, managing partner and broker with Trinity Commercial Group, stands outside the former Fort Myers Cyclery. O’Berski plans to turn the property into Motley Market, a farmers market, general store and community gathering place.
David Dorsey
For Prophet, a nonprofit organization O’Berski created, will lease the building back, O’Berski said, and convert it into a farmers market and general store. He wants it to also be a community hub, one where people will gather and have cross-cultural conversations — a place for a diverse community to connect.
It’s located across U.S. 41 from Latimer Crossing, a mixed-income, 92-unit apartment complex. O’Berski’s TCG recently leased one of the three commercial units there to Foxtail Coffee, which just opened.
The internal buildout of Motley Market should be completed by the end of this year. For the external modifications, O’Berski said he is applying to the Fort Myers Community Redevelopment Agency for funding. He did not expect Motley Market to open before March 1, 2027, but it could have a food truck sooner.
O’Berski said he has a 10-acre farm under contract and plans to use the farm, slated to close later this fall, to help source the farmers market.
In addition to his job as a real estate broker, O’Berski also leads an in-home church community called L1A — which stands for “Love One Another.”
The former Fort Myers Cyclery building at 3630 Cleveland Ave. in Fort Myers was purchased for $1 million by Dan O’Berski, who plans to transform it into Motley Market, a farmers market, general store and community hub.
David Dorsey
“Jesus didn’t have that as a hurdle,” O’Berski said of having the financials to hold important conversations. “We feel the business community can also be a place where we can have these conversations. We’re not letting that go away.”
For the previous three decades, the building had been home to a bike shop, most recently known as Fort Myers Cyclery and Fort Myers Schwinn prior to that. For the first 28 of those years, Michael and Diane Holm operated it before selling it in September 2023 for $815,000 to 3630 Cleveland Ave. LLC, owned by Edward Wian and operated by his son, Michael Wian.
The Wians’ bike business is moving to Centerplace at Esplanade, in Unit 310, a shopping center off Alico Road at 11850 Cheeca Court, east of Interstate 75.
The tradition of selling bikes from the Cleveland Avenue address would continue, O’Berski said, in the form of refurbished, discounted electric bicycles.
O’Berski grew up near Detroit, but he often visited Bonita Springs, where his grandfather was a real estate broker. There’s a home video of O’Berski as a child saying he would grow up to become a “realster.”
On Aug. 31, doing a final walk-through of the building before wiring the money, O’Berski had much of his family with him: three of his six children, his parents and several friends, including Les Hudson, who led the group in prayer.
“We were praying through how this store would activate within the community,” said O’Berski, who adopted two of his children and lives in nearby Jefferson Park. “Hey, this is going to be a store that’s going to have a very eclectic experience. We want it for families that totally don’t look like ours. How do we pick a name that fits in with that? We started kicking around names.
Dan O’Berski, center in teal shirt, gathers with family and friends inside the former Fort Myers Cyclery building. O’Berski plans to transform the property into Motley Market, with an opening targeted for 2027.
David Dorsey
“Motley is defined as ‘incongruously varied in appearance or character; disparate.’ Most people would look at what we’re trying to accomplish as that.”
O’Berski and his wife, Kristin, moved from Michigan to Lee County more than 20 years ago. For nine years, they lived in a gated community in Estero. During that span, O’Berski said he felt his spiritual life stagnating. So, they moved.
“We felt challenged with our definition of what being a Jesus follower meant,” O’Berski said. “We looked at ourselves and realized we asked him to follow us and bless what visions we had. We had been challenged that if we claimed to be people who followed Jesus, we might need to find where Jesus would be and follow him instead.”
The location of Motley Market ties into that, O’Berski said — across the street from Allure Gentlemen’s Club, the strip club.
“In Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, where did Jesus hang out?” O’Berski said. “Most of the time, he was hanging out with people who didn’t have significant resources. And a place like a strip club fits. We’re not afraid of where anybody comes from.”